Conventionally, patches, which vary according to program, i.e., programs installed in a computer, are provided to resolve failures that have occurred in or to prevent failures from occurring in the computer. A server managed by the vender of the programs installed in the computer provides patches. A computer on the client side downloads the patches through the Internet, etc., from a server providing the patches, and applies the patches.
A large number of patches are provided regardless of the scale of the failure and therefore, the selection of a patch appropriate for each computer is difficult. As a result, conventionally, all patches that a server is able to provide are downloaded and applied to a computer, or the work of searching for a proper patch, based on various types of information concerning the failure is commissioned to an expert. A technique is disclosed of identifying a patch, based on disclosed failure information (see, e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-233512).
However, if all the patches are downloaded and applied to a computer, the process of downloading and applying each is time consuming and a problem arises in that the operation of the computer has to be discontinued for a long time. If more patches than necessary are applied, a problem further arises in that the possibility of an occurrence of a level-down (a secondary failure caused by a patch that has been applied) increases. For example, if all the patches are applied and a level-down occurs, a problem arises in that it is difficult to identify the patch that has caused the level-down, from among the large number of patches.
If the work of searching for a proper patch, based on various types of information concerning the failure is commissioned to an expert, problems arise in that the precision of selecting the patch may be low depending on the skill of the worker and even for a highly skilled worker, it is difficult to select patches if multiple patches have to be combined. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-233512 does not recite specifically what announced information is used and what process is used to identify the patch.